The Bitterness of One Who's Left Alone
by Jessica-X
Summary: [VOLUME 3 SPOILERS] After the fall at Beacon, Ruby and Yang are back in Patch, trying to make sense of what happened to them and how everything fell apart. One of them is dealing better than the other. [Another brief roleplay with Dragonxborne]


**The Bitterness of One Who's Left Alone**

A RWBY Roleplay  
by Dragonxborne and Jessica X

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Characters and settings are © Rooster Teeth / Monty Oum. Story/plot © me and my sis. All rights reserved. Fic title is taken from a Smashing Pumpkins song... and hopefully most Rooster Teeth fans will laughcry when they realise which one.

NOTE: Another brief headcanon that Elsa and I couldn't resist diving into. MAJOR volume 3 spoilers.

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The leaves fell one by one, dancing on the wind as they made their steady descent from the very top of the world to rock bottom. Violet eyes watched each one; it was like they were taunting her. Every falling leaf a reminder of how she had experienced the same fall in just a fraction of the time.

Her chest burned; it hadn't stopped since she regained consciousness. Not the familiar burn of her own fire, but more the kind that eats away at you slowly from the inside, until all that's left is a shadow of the person you used to be. Or the memory of a person who ran… when you needed them most.

A faint knock sounded at the door. One that had come a dozen times before, and been either dismissed or acknowledged depending on the day and mood. Today was an unlucky day. The knock was acknowledged, but rather aggressively.

"What now, Ruby?" Her tone was sharper than it had been all week. A tone not worthy of poor Ruby, who had only done her best to keep her sister out of the spiral she was diving into.

The door edged open and the smaller girl backed into the room. At first, this seemed a little odd - until she turned to reveal a tray in her hands, laden down with food.

 _"Paaaancakes!"_ Ruby announced cheerily as she approached the bed. "And don't worry, they're Nora's recipe; we both remember what happened the last time I tried inventing my own, right?"

Yang stared down the cheery girl, gaze flicking between her smile and the tray. "I'm not hungry." Despite having not eaten in days, Yang's appetite was scarce. "Mix some whisky with the syrup, I'm sure Qrow will eat them." She had devolved to petty insults, picking out other people's faults to try and mask her thoughts from her own.

"But they're not for Qrow, they're for my sister!" Setting the tray down across her lap, Ruby stayed standing by the bedside. "And I mean, even if you just eat the bacon... well, Zwei can finish what you don't."

Eyes narrowed and fixated on the girl before her. "Didn't you hear me, Ruby? I'm not… hungry."

The smile stayed stubbornly in place, even though her eyes hardened slightly. "You don't have to be hungry to eat, silly. But... you didn't eat yesterday, either. Please, at least try?"

A lone fist clenched. Staring at her sister's smile, something snapped. "How? How can you stand there and smile after _everything_ that just happened? How can you just be cheery old Ruby still when people have _died?"_

The answer that came a few seconds later, once she had recovered from the shock of being shouted at, was soft and mild. "Because we're still alive. And... and Pyrrha and Penny wouldn't want us to stop living just because they're..." Despite hey own cheer, she couldn't quite say the word. Not when applying it to them.

"Well it doesn't matter what they want now, does it? Because they're dead. They're _dead,_ and I couldn't save them." Her fist clenched even tighter, her nails digging into her palm. "I couldn't save them because I chose to save someone I thought was worth more, and in my error, I lost more than I bargained for." Her jaw clenched. Unimaginable hatred burned in her veins, and it was visible on her face.

"I couldn't save them, either, Yang… and I was actually there. Like, feet away from Pyrrha — she was so close I could hear her gasp when the arrow hit her chest. How were you supposed to do anything?"

The pain was evident and raw in Ruby's voice now. It was the most she had ever let herself open up about her own feelings on their deaths since right after she woke up, speaking to her father. In the weeks following, she had been putting on her best brave face, doing everything she could to console her sister, to help Taiyang deal with his other, suddenly-less-resilient daughter.

"I could have! I could have wiped the _floor_ with Cinder if I had just chosen to go after her! But no! I chose to go after-" Her voice stopped. She couldn't even say her name. The loss of her arm was nothing compared to the pain she felt knowing Blake ran away. "I failed. I couldn't save anyone. Not a single person. The one person I did try to save? Ended up saving _me._ I was useless. _I didn't do a damn THING, Ruby."_

"You tried. You did, okay? That's more than... than anybody else did, me and Weiss tried to save Pyrrha, and you tried to save Blake, and... I know it didn't work, but w-we did our best, and we stopped anything worse from happening! Doesn't that count for something?"

"No Ruby, it doesn't. It doesn't matter that we 'tried', and you know why? Because we still lost more than we saved. Our town, our friends… hell, we couldn't even save our damn school and it was full of huntresses and hunters, wasn't it? Of course, now that I really look at it? Doesn't surprise me." She scoffed. " I kicked just about everyone to the dust in that damn school, and look how much good _I_ was when it really mattered?"

The younger girl's trim shoulders raised and lowered weakly. "We're kids, Yang... we weren't supposed to have to deal with something this big yet. That's why we had a school, right? So that _after_ we graduated, we'd be ready to fight. We just... we just didn't get that far before Cinder attacked."

The blonde knew Ruby was right, she did. She knew everything her little sister was saying was the truth, but despite that? Yang was, at her very core, a protector, a fighter. There was nothing she wasn't supposed to be able to do with just a well placed punch or kick, but nothing she threw that day landed the way it was supposed to and because of that, the only thing that landed was herself in bed, five pounds lighter.

"You just don't understand."

Ah, but she did. Ruby understood everything, and in some ways she understood even more than Yang did. The girls were just two different people, and while one of them could shake anything off, the other couldn't stop throwing punches. She had just turned them on herself. Even to a blind man, it was obvious that Yang was just hurting badly, and it wasn't for lack of wanting to see her sister - it was more the lack of someone she wanted to see even more.

"Then explain it to me." Ruby's narrow hips edged onto the mattress, sad eyes barely affected by her fragile smile. "Just talk to me about it - I'm here with you, Sis. I know everything sucks, and I'm not dumb enough to pretend it doesn't. But look where we are! We're alive, we're home, and... and as much as I miss what we lost, if I stop caring about what I still have... then what's the point in being here?"

Her words were barely a whisper as they fell from her lips. "You can still fight..."

"So can you! I mean..." Her throat worked to swallow hard. This was an area they had barely touched on yet, and she wasn't sure how far was too far, how soon was too soon. But the time had passed to pussyfoot around the subject. "You have more butt-kicking power in one fist than most people do in two, so once you get used to using just your left hand-"

Her jaw visibly clenched again. "You want me to explain it to you? Here it is. You act like this is just some fairy tale, some epic story where all you have to do is keep fighting and somehow everything will magically fall into place, and the good guy will always win. You act like there isn't anything Cinder can do that won't just devastate any chance we have of victory. The way I fight depends on _both_ arms. My right side is now completely defenseless to kicks, and I don't know if you remember, but that's Mercury's specialty, isn't it? Why don't you just go play hero somewhere else and save the world with all of your limbs intact, and I'll be the character that fades into the background because she's no longer of use?"

The utter defeat in Yang's voice was just heart breaking. Her fight, all of it… was just… gone.

"Because that isn't you, that's why. That's not my big sister; she would never let anything keep her down. Even if that red-haired creep took both your arms, you would learn to use your legs instead! I know you would, I know you're not powerless! Why don't you know that anymore?!" Ruby's voice was sounding more and more desperate, hoping to push, to get through to the injured woman laying in the bed that she wasn't simply "broken".

Her eyes were shrink wrapped in tears. All she wanted was for Ruby to just give up hope in her so she could waste away in bed peacefully, but no; that stubborn kid lived in a storybook and nothing could happen that was going to keep her from victory, and by proxy, that meant anyone else she saw in her story, too.

"Get out..."

Stung by the order, Ruby's head tucked down against her chest. Her silver eyes flicked to the tray, then back to the floor, and then to the door. Indecisive.

"GET _OUT!"_ This time the order was shouted with venom, perhaps a little bit of aggression would usher the smaller girl out the door faster. She was taking too long, and every second threatened that Ruby saw her cry.

"Fine," Ruby finally whispered, getting up from the bed and slinking toward the exit. She was about halfway there when she turned back around.

"You think you're the only one who gets to feel pain, don't you? That I haven't been dying without my sister? Today is the most you've talked to me since I woke up, and... and you don't even want me to stay! But no, only you lost an arm, only you lost Blake and Weiss! Only you lost _you!"_ Her chest heaved for a second. "Come with me! I'm going to go do something about this, even if it's dumb, even if I can't do any good out there, I'm gonna try! Do you really wanna just... just sit here and do nothing?!"

Every word out of Ruby's mouth was like a bullet to the heart. Yang knew she wasn't the only one hurting, but she was the one she blamed for it, so she was the one she had to punish.

"Do me a favour and for once, just listen to what you're told and shut the door on your way out."

After a few seconds of pointless waiting, hoping Yang would take the words back, she turned and paced to the door, hand gripping the doorknob. Her voice was barely loud enough to reach Yang's ears.

"I love you so much... and I don't care what shape you're in, how bad you're hurt. I'm never giving up on you." Then she pulled it shut behind her.

Everything in Yang ached. It ached with failure, with sorrow, with remorse and it all caused her to curl in on herself. She wanted so badly to say she loved Ruby back. Yang wanted so badly to tell her "thank you" and how much it meant to her that she'd never give up. How proud she was to be her sister, and how impressed she was that Ruby refused to quit. She wanted to say all of that, and more.

The little dragon just didn't have the strength right now to be who her sister knew she was. Yang's entire identity was essentially tied to her arms and her ability to fight, and when she lost one… it was like losing half of who she was. Blake abandoning her was the other half. Giving up wasn't her style, but it would take her a while yet to figure out who she _really_ was. To be reminded that Xiao Longs only stop fighting when they die.

Yang wasn't broken, she was lost.

And maybe… just maybe… Ruby's final words as she left the room that day would give her the strength she needed to remember who she is. A soldier. Fighting in a battle to save the world, and that it's worth fighting for.

 _~ The End ~_


End file.
